This is not to say that population control has made no headway in Asia. Pushed incessantly by figures like the World Bank's McNamara, the idea that nations could become rich only if they moved to control their population rates became an article of faith among Western and Western-educated intellectuals in Asia-- a faith backed up by aid dollars linked to the willingness of recipient countries to develop control measures. In the Philippines, for example, the U.S. Agency for International Development obtained a provision in the Marcos-era constitution granting the state authority over population levels. The Western missionary fervor once directed at Christianizing Asia has been channeled, in the second half of the twentieth century, into proselytizing for fewer Asians.
-ditto-
Wla naman lagi zumpaye niyng tunob ni tsenilas? Wla na makatoud?
up..!
Na hala, ako na lay sumpay. Ato lang maningleson aron maibot sa tsinelas...
Population control, which was a 60s and 70s buzzword, has since loosened its once vise-like grip on the world's imagination. The specter of a world bursting at its seams has lost its scare value not just due to more momentous subsequent world events but also to the growing perception (which I personally subscribe to) that it was made out to be more terrifying than it really is. Western countries joined the Malthusian bandwagon not so much from genuine concern for the future of mankind but from immediate national self-interest. The fact that the dramatic rise in world population (which started in the preceding century) was brought about largely by developing countries created panic in some established societies hell-bent on preserving their cherished way of life--whatever it is. The mantra of the demographic shift altering world geopolitics in favor of children of a lesser god, so to speak, was chiseled into the minds of decision-makers by supremacist policy-makers.
In the USAID stricture cited above, the population explosion issue was apparently used to further the American imperialist dream. The US of A then was losing and would eventually lose the Vietnam War, and clearly was still far from having decisively clinched Pax Americana. Keeping a lid on Philippine population growth was part and parcel of Uncle Sam's quest for hegemony. Countries with large growing populations but blessed with rich natural resources were targeted because such countries could reasonably be expected to be able to support larger populations, grow wealthy and be on the road to becoming bona fide world players. Such a development would negatively impact (sorry, I never use this word in this sense, but I'm being carried away by the appropriate imagery of its medical connotation) on their bloated sense of self-importance.
It may be noted that numerous studies have shown no correlation whatsoever between population density and poverty. There is, on the other hand, an unmistakable link between a country's poverty level and its government's scale of corruption. Ah, Philippines. But that's another story.
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